Unlawful Seduction?
by KyralianKyliann
Summary: ONE-SHOT After Stayne had told the Red Queen that Um had tried to seduce him, she's brought before the Queen to be judged. Here, secrets are revealed. Halice.


_**Unlawful**__** Seduction ?**_

**Sum up of what happened before and that I will not write:**

**W****hen Stayne arrived in Tarrant's room, he found her with the Hatter and Mallyumkin, the latter trying to free the former, with Alice's (or rather Um's) help. But there were too many soldiers, and Alice/Um refused to abandon her friends, in spite of everything they could say. Alice/Um could only hide the Vorpal Sword in one of The Hatter's cloth rolls before the soldiers – and above all the knave – could see it. They are now all imprisoned, but in this version, Mally has shut her mouth, and Um's real identity remains unknown. She now stands before the Red Queen, who will judge her for illegal seduction.**

"Um from Umbrage, you're the worst kind of traitor! It has been reported that you tried to corrupt my dear knave, Ilosovic Stayne, with this body of yours. The sentence is death! OFF WITH HER HEAD!"

"But I didn't do it! How could you kill someone without knowing if one is guilty or not?"

"I have two people here saying that you did! Are you saying they are lying?"

"I'm sorry to say so, but I'm afraid I have to. I did not do it! Nor have I ever wanted to! I could not have!"

"_No_? And would you tell me why you could not?"

"That, Your Majesty, is because… I love someone… who is not Stayne."

At these words, murmurs started to be heard all along the room. From the corner of her eye, she saw the Hatter looking curiously at her, and Stayne's head rose up violently.

"Who?" He hissed. Alice glanced at him with a bad look.

"I'm talking to the Queen, not to her knave." She replied with a scornful tone and turned to the Red Queen. "I love a man, and thus I could never betray him by doing such a disgusting thing."

The Red Queen then spoke again.

"I want to know who this man is."

Alice took a deep breath. "Your Majesty, I… I can't say it here."

"You _can't_? And why can't you? How do you want me to believe you if you don't prove yourself? I knew it, you're a liar. _Off with her head_!"

"I'm no liar! And I will tell you his name… to You alone. I want it to be heard by no other than Your Majesty." Alice thought about what she was going to do, and gathered her courage. To save her and her companions' life, she was going to open her heart to the same woman asking for her head.

Stayne could not let that happen.

"It is a trick to be alone with you, Your Majesty. She's just waiting for an occasion to hurt you! Please, My Queen, do not listen to her!"

"I am not!" Alice replied, indignant. "You shall have never loved anyone if you do not know that speaking of such matter in public is quite embarrassing." And indeed, she was blushing remarkably. "He knows nothing of it, and I do not want anyone but me to tell him. That is perfectly normal, and you'll know it if you were in love. And I can't trust all the people here, for I do not know them." She bowed to the Queen. "However, I know I can trust Your Majesty, for you have too much honor to tell anyone a secret which is not yours."

"Be careful that she will not ask for her companion to stay, under the pretext that she trusts them too." Stayne kept on trying to influence the Queen into distrusting Alice, who was growing more and more annoyed by the knave's hypocrisy.

"Of course I'm not going to! I said I will speak to the Queen and the Queen_ only_. In fact," She added hesitantly, "I would rather that my companions were not listening." She was now as red as the Red Queen – though not for the same reasons –, and was afraid to look at Mallyumkin, and at the Tarrant even more. But she didn't have to look, for she could feel their stares on her, and could almost touch their lack of understanding, the distrust coming from the dormouse, and the disappointment and pain from the Hatter.

The Queen turned to her knave.

"I want to know who she loves so much that she would not want you. She does not look like a dangerous creature to me. And moreover, I know that if she tries to do me harm, you'll come to save me immediately." She added with a creepy smile and stretching out her hand to him, so the knave had no choice but obeying. Stayne kissed the hand and then hurried outside by the door near the Queen's throne, which he however did not close entirely.

"Now, EVERYONE OUT!" she shouted.

Soon, they were the only two left in the room.

"So, Um from Umbrage, who is this man you love?"

Alice climbed the few steps leading to the throne slowly, so that the Queen would not call her knave, came closer to her and whispered a name in her ear. The Queen's eyes went round, and her mouth opened widely.

"You are making a fool of me! Stayne was right, it was only a trick. How disappointing!"

"I tell you, I do love him, far too much to imagine ever being with someone else." And certainly not a certain Hamish waiting for her in Overland. She was beginning to dread her return up there.

"_Him_? But… he's absolutely _mad_!" The Queen was unbelieving and looked at Alice as if she was some strange creature with an even stranger mind – and she certainly was for the Queen, for the two of them were as different as day and night.

"Yes he is and… I think I am positively mad as well, for dreaming of such a man." The shy smile on her face was so genuine, even the Red Queen, who knew what it was like to love someone, could not believe she was lying.

"I think you are indeed, my girl. Why doesn't he know?"

"I… Your Majesty could perhaps understand me, I do not want to be rejected, and I surely would be if he knew. I am so much taller than him! How could he ever love a girl he can't even give a hug?" Her voice died in her throat. As she was speaking, Alice realized that she in fact hadn't lied once yet: she _did_ love him and was truly distressed by the fact that he would not take her in his arms.

"Such a stupid reason not to love someone!" The big-headed Queen was truly upset. "I'll bring him here so you can tell of your feelings, and I will have his head if he will not have you!"

"No, please! I… I would rather not. I promise as soon as you will free us, I will tell him. He would have asked me what it's about, anyway…" Alice was not a little anxious about how she was going to confess. And what will he answer, for that matter?

"Do that! And promise that you shall have your wedding party in the castle as well. But, wait – why should I free you?" The Queen suddenly realized what Alice had been saying.

"Because Your Majesty, we _are_ innocent of what we are accused."

"You cannot be innocent. Ilosovic said you tried to seduce him." Alice sighed inwardly. She was going to have a hard time convincing her interlocutor otherwise. But The Queen had not finished. "Besides, one of my women told me that she saw you two being very close." She was once again wearing suspicion on her red face. And Alice understood. Her mouth twisted with disgust.

"I think I may know what she has seen."

"So you agree that –"

"That what your woman has seen was me being pushed again a wall by your knave." Hearing what, the Red Queen was left speechless, her eyes round as balls and her cheeks becoming redder and redder.

"You liar! Why would he do that? He likes me!"

"If you do not believe me, maybe you shall send for the one who has seen us...?"

"That's right. You have got a well-build mind, Um." She called a servant, and soon this one came back with that woman Alice had already seen, the one with enormous – and false – ears.

"Now tell me, what did you see exactly?" The Queen demanded to know.

"Your Majesty, as I told you, I saw Miss Um and Sir Ilosovic Stayne speaking very closely in one of the corridors."

Alice then questioned the woman.

"You entered the corridor when we were already … 'speaking', is that right?"

"Yes, and I saw you and the knave, against the wall, and –"

"And did you saw me as I pushed the knave away and left him in the corridor?" The woman seemed to lose a little of her self-assurance.

"Well, yes I saw that, but –"

"Here Your Majesty, just as I told you. I was on my way to see the Hatter." She added, looking down and blushing a bit. The Queen was so red, Alice feared that she may explode.

"You," she snapped at the big-eared woman, "_out_! And _you_," she turned to Alice, "you should have told me immediately!"

"I did not want to see you sad, Your Majesty. That is why I did not say a thing. He just pushed me against a wall, and said he liked largeness before I ran away. And since he said he liked largeness, I'm sure he likes you all the same, because your beautiful head is the largest I have ever seen."

"He would have lied to me?" She seemed to suffocate.

"I know it must be hard to believe, for you who love him so much –"

"How do you know?" The Queen cut, half-standing. Alice wondered if she had made a mistake. She hesitantly give her an answer which, she hoped, would appease the other woman a bit.

"I am a girl, and I am in love. I shall know when I meet someone like me." That seemed to work.

"I'm supposed you're right. Me, for instance, I knew that you were in love. I just wanted to know with who."

"And now that you know, you can't believe I would have gone into another's arms, I'm sure."

The Queen was deep in thought, and was having a hard time thinking about what happened. After a few minutes of silence, she looked at Alice.

"What am I going to do with you, Um?" She spoke with a weary voice, as if she was used to being disappointed by others, and Alice felt a sudden urge to comfort her. But she knew she should not, if she wanted to achieve her goal.

"You welcomed me here very graciously, and I am very grateful for that, but Majesty, I do not want to cause you any troubles… As You said, I should talk with… You know who. If we could just go back to his windmill… I'm sure we could be happy there." Alice found herself wanting pretty much what she was proposing: a life in Underland with her beloved Hatter.

"You want me to release him?"

"They were only imprisoned because they were with me, but Your majesty sees that I am innocent! But if I go alone with him, people will understand that… he is the one I was talking about. And Mallyumkin is only a dormouse! But I assure you, they are not dangerous, only trying to protect me. They have no intention of hurting you!" That was a monstrous lie, and Alice felt a bit ashamed of lying like that to the Queen, who was maybe cruel and mean and eager to cut heads, but who nevertheless trusted her and who just realized that the man she loved did not reciprocated the feeling very much. Yet she was glad that the Queen had fallen for it.

"You see, Um, I cannot understand why you don't want people to know. The three of you will be released. I like you, Um. You seem to understand me well. You can come here anytime you want. And if the Hatter annoys you, tell me and I will have his head off."

She called everyone back in the throne room, and gave orders for Alice, Tarrant and Mallyumkin to be released, at everyone's surprise and Stayne's great displeasure. Alice knew that his displeasure was sure to increase quickly, when she heard the Queen calling him as she and her friends were leaving the place.

"STAAAAYYYYYNE!" The sound of it resounded in Alice's head for several minutes after that.

* * *

><p>Alice was on her balcony, at Mamoreal, where they came straight after leaving Salazen Grum. They had been going fast, without speaking because Alice had refused to relate her conversation with the Queen. Now, they were in another castle, with another Queen. The Vorpal Sword had returned to the champion's armor, Alice was back at her usual height, and everyone was expecting her to slay the Jabberwocky the next day. But at that instant, she was feeling nothing like a Champion, and everything like a woman who knew that she soon had to leave her friends – and one in particular: she felt sad, and in love.<p>

She was staring at the night when she heard footsteps behind her. She knew immediately whose steps it was.

"Good evening, Hatter."

"Good evening, Alice."

He came beside her, and, like her, leaned on the balustrade.

"Earlier, with the red Queen…" He began, hesitantly. "Were you lying?" He so desperately wanted to know.

"I said lies, and I said truths." _That_ was not a lie, but it brought a painful expression on the Hatter. He took a deep breath.

"Is it why you do not want to stay? Because there is someone in Overland you… you love and want to be with?"

Alice's heart was pounding in her chest. He looked so hurt by the thought! She didn't want to see him with such pain, such sadness… Her hand shyly went to settle on his. Her voice was a bit strangled when she spoke.

"When I want to be with the man I love, I shall stay here… in Underland…" She squeezed his hand a little. "With you."

Suddenly, she was in the Mad Hatter's arms, pressed against his chest, her arms around his neck. and his hand on her back.

"Do it! Stay with me forever!" He said, the head buried in her blond messy hair.

"What an idea! A mad and wonderful idea… as mad and wonderful as this world." She stepped back, her hands still on his shoulders. "Nothing could please me more. But I don't even know if I will still be alive tomorrow at this hour! I'm scared, Tarrant, and I can't afford to make plans for an 'after'. I don't want to think about what tomorrow will bring. If I do, I think I'm not going to make it through the night!"

They stay embraced a long moment, enjoying the knowledge of the other's feeling and fearing the events of the next day. The Hatter held his Champion tighter, knowing that he could say nothing to comfort her, because she will have to fight the Jabberwocky, and she will be alone then. No, he can't say anything, but perhaps he could do something… Alice seemed to think the same, because she straightened and spoke.

"Tarrant, I love you. And I want to stay here forever. But I don't know if it's possible, even if I do slay the Jabberwocky. I've got a life in Overland, and I don't know if I can throw it away like that. But tonight, I just want to be _slurvish_ for once. Tarrant, this may be my last night, and it may not. But if it is, then I will need you to help me through it. I don't want to think about anything but you, and I don't want you thinking about anything but me. Can you do it?"

"That, love, should not be very difficult." The Hatter answered, before bending forward and brushing her lips with his owns.

"Will you stay with me tonight?" She asked then.

"I will."

Alice brought his face closer to hers and kissed him, more and more furiously as he kissed her back, and soon it was not only their lips and tongues but their whole bodies which where connecting with the other's, granting Alice's wish to forget anything but themselves.

As he promised, Tarrant Highttop was still lying on Alice's bed, holding her in his arms, when she woke up the next morning.

**Except for the obvious Halice part, I wrote this because I wanted to show Iracebeth's human side, and the fact that she became cruel because no one has ever given her love and tenderness.**** She wants people to love her, but each time is disappointed in her expectations. I found her incredibly human in the movie, but p****eople often see the head-cutting part, without the reason behind it. But she is not entirely bad: she did welcomed Um as a friend. I wanted her to reveal this side of her. You tell me if I succeed =)**


End file.
